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The Brad Blog: O'Keefe Releases Another New Video Fraudulently Purporting to Illustrate 'Voter Fraud' in Minnesota

By FZ - Posted on 11 February 2012

This time, it's not what he shows you, but what he doesn't...

-By Brad Friedman

February 7, 2012-Convicted federal criminal James O'Keefe and his band of co-conspirators at his ironically named Project Veritas outfit have another new video in their "Voter Fraud Investigation" series out. So that means, naturally, they're misleading the public again.

This time, O'Keefe's video portends to show some of his courageous, unnamed and unseen cohorts at various voter registration centers in Minnesota, asking whether they can have voter registration forms to take home to "Thomas Brady" and "Timothy Tebow", so they can register them to vote. The unseen voices are heard asking the helpful public clerks whether ID is necessary for those folks to register to vote. They are told that ID is not necessary in order for them to submit registration forms.

You'll recall that with O'Keefe's previous video --- in which they committed polling place voter fraud during the New Hampshire primary in order to "prove" that polling place voter fraud exists in the Granite State, despite no more than, at best, two known incidents of it over the past decade in the entire state --- he claimed: "Unlike the establishment media, Project Veritas works to release full, unedited versions of its investigations and stories," before he then linked to a video purporting to be the "full, unedited version" of his New Hampshire "investigation" videos. What he linked to, however, wasn't the "full, unedited version" of those videos, as they failed to show, among other things, the (at least) one incident in which one of his partners was chased out of the polling place. In other words, O'Keefe lied. That's what he does.

So I don't know if he has released an "unedited" version this time or not. I'm currently on the road and don't have enough time for his idiocy as is, so I haven't checked to see if there's another version of this. But let's go ahead and presume, for the moment, that the following edited version accurately-ish represents what happened when he sent his people into Minnesota voter registration offices...

Okay. Now let's dismantle O'Keefe's latest horse shit...

There are, essentially, two claims O'Keefe is hoping to illustrate here, as part of his Republican Party's years-long effort to force disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restrictions on voters, purportedly to combat their baseless claims of an epidemic of "voter fraud". You'll be stunned to learn that O'Keefe is being entirely dishonest in his latest propaganda in support of this GOP voter suppression effort.

The facts are that some 21 million legal American voters lack the state-issued Photo ID required under the measures O'Keefe is hoping to support here. And it's also a fact that those who lack such ID are disproportionately Democratic-leaning voters such as minorities, the elderly and students. For example, while 10% of the general voting public lack state-issued Photo ID, some 25% of African-Americans don't have it, and stand to be disenfranchised entirely under such laws. That's why he and his fellow Republicans are pushing for these new laws, as implemented since 2010 in nearly a dozen states where the GOP controls both the legislature and the executive branch.

In his latest video, O'Keefe two illustrated claims are: 1) No ID is needed to register to vote in Minnesota and 2) After registering without an ID, one could subsequently vote fraudulently via absentee ballot.

Both of those claims are, by and large, true-ish --- at least in Minnesota, though in many other states as well. But there are two key points, one for each of his claims, that O'Keefe fails to mention in the disingenuous video.

1) While one can indeed register to vote (in most places) without showing an ID via third party, what O'Keefe fails to mention in his video, is that the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 already requires those who do not register in person to provide ID when voting for the first time at the polling place. In other words, if "Thomas Brady" registers to vote via the registration forms received via O'Keefe's video, he would be required, by federal law, to show an ID the first time he votes in person at the polling place. That is already federal law. O'Keefe must have forgotten to mention that in his latest "Voter Fraud Investigation" video.

2) To work around the above point in order to commit voter fraud, one could, after committing a felony by fraudulently filling out a voter registration form, go ahead and commit another felony by voting via absentee ballot without having to show an ID, as also discussed in the video (at least in states which allow easy, "no-excuse" access for that type of voting.) It would, indeed, be possible, in this way, to commit voter fraud, if one wished to risk the very high penalties for committing yet another felony. What O'Keefe fails to mention in his video, however, is that the polling place Photo ID restrictions that Republicans have been pushing for, and which this video is obviously meant to support, would do nothing to prevent this absentee voter fraud!

So what have we learned here? O'Keefe, an accomplished scam artist and federal criminal who pretends to be a "journalist", is happy to give misleading information suggesting that one can register and subsequently vote anytime, anywhere, with no ID ever required. That is false. An ID would be required, by federal law, at the polling place under his scenario in every state inthe union, but he dishonestly fails to mention that.